Electro photo printing technology is an evolving technology that changes with time as market demands, especially the computer market and the imaging market, evolve and change. The main features of the printer/cartridge technology that are presently evolving include:
A. Printer Speed
As time passes printer manufacturing firms try to design faster printing machines. The speed of a printing machine is usually defined by the number of pages the printer can print per minute (also known as ppm). In today's market, there are office laser printers that can go up to 60 pages per minute.
B. Print Resolution
As the imaging market evolves more and more customers expect higher print quality. Where in the past, laser printers used to print simple graphics, in today's market the printers can print in relatively high resolutions, around 1200 dots per inch (dpi).
C. Demand for Color
The laser toner color printer market share is growing every year relative to that of the black and white laser toner printer market.
In order to accommodate for the market's demands, new toner formulations and toner making technologies have been developed to comply with the evolving demands for speed, resolution and use of colors. Higher printing speed printers require toner resins with lower melting points to accommodate for the faster fusing speed. Higher resolution printers require smaller average particle size toner in order to achieve the small details in high resolution images and color toners inhibit the use of magnetic toner system. Hence, most color toners are mono-component, non-magnetic toners. Moreover, the need for color, non-magnetic toner significantly limits the variety of materials that can be used as resins. Those changes and others known in this field but not specifically described herein are responsible for a number of side effects in the functionality of toner cartridges such that they create print defects and reduce print quality. The present system and method are directed to solving a common problem found in high speed, non-magnetic toner printer systems and color toner systems. This problem is usually called “toner scatter” or “dusting”. Toner scatter refers to toner particles that disengage from the developing system and accumulate inside of the laser toner cartridge, and typically create local print defects on the printed media, such as toner stains or continuous haze. Continuous haze is also known as “background” on the printed media.
In one preferred embodiment of the present system and method a toner shield is installed inside of the laser toner cartridge in order to prevent the toner scatter phenomenon. When installed the toner shield minimizes or prevents toner from scattering and/or accumulating inside of the cartridge, thus eliminating the aforementioned print defects. The shield described below can be used in a new laser toner cartridge or in a remanufactured laser toner cartridge.